


when I dream (I reach for you)

by ratafia



Series: Kinktober 2019 [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Memory Loss, Oral Sex, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 19:36:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20879570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratafia/pseuds/ratafia
Summary: Clary forgets almost everything. Almost.





	when I dream (I reach for you)

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the second day of Kinktober - Fantasy.

"How do you find your inspiration? Do you have a muse?"

People ask that of artists all the time. The answer is different for every one of them, of course.   
Clary though always gets lost at how to respond.   
How can she explain who her inspiration is, if she doesn't know herself? 

Yet inside her heart, she believes with absolute certainty that it is but a single person, somebody, whom she never met, never saw, and yet...  
The image of that person in her head is always the same, sometimes revealing new details, but consistent through and through.   
It is more than a mere product of her imagination, Clary knows.   
That phantasm that keeps haunting her, day and night, it's somehow real, even if it couldn't be.   
So there's no real choice for her but to draw it. 

Put it on paper and canvas, cloth and wood, walls and floors, streets and even her own skin. 

Anything to put it out of her mind for just a moment. 

Anything to get just a little bit closer to it. 

There's not that much to go on.   
She pieces her muse from scattered fragments in her mind's eye, collects them like a puzzle, trying to put order into an endlessly shifting mosaic.   
It's clearer when she dreams about it.   
That is where her muse truly lives.   
She moves and dances, breathes and almost talks.   
Smiles and, most importantly...  
This is where she touches Clary. 

Clary was mildly shocked the first morning she woke up from a rather steamy dream.   
She couldn't recall many details then, but she remembered one thing.   
Her dream was about a woman.   
And it was the first of many. 

She dreamt of strong but gentle arms. 

Of the flash of long black hair, thrown over the shoulder with a practiced shake of the head. 

Black, inky, just like the patterns adorning the stranger's skin. 

Clary spent countless hours trying to remember, to draw them, thinking that maybe if she could, she somehow would be able to find her phantom in reality...  
She never knew from where that notion even came from, but it felt like truth nonetheless.  
So she drew and painted.

Color swirled under her fingers, matted in splotches of paint.   
She never cared, too engrossed in her work.   
She had to paint it _just_ right, _just_ so, and then, maybe, _maybe_...  
Maybe that fleeting dream, that crazy fantasy of a woman she never knew would come to life. 

Then she would walk from her canvas and smile that charming grin of crimson lips. 

Then she would surely reach her hands to Clary, drawing her into a tight embrace. 

Then she would tell Clary her name. 

Clary didn't mean to become so obsessed.   
But how could she stand that perfect fantasy of a woman who was closer to a goddess than reality and not to become so? 

So. 

So she spent her nights alone, with music and art, thinking, drawing again and again. 

And sometimes she went dancing.   
There, in the bustle and the booming music of the clubs, with alcohol running through her veins and dulling her senses, the only place where she could relax.   
Simply let everything go, allow her thoughts to flow as they come, steady waves of muddled fantasies that were just enough in that fleeting moment.   
Clary never actually believed that she would meet the person from her dreams.   
Never did she dare to let herself believe that and live with a crushing reality of never being able to.  
Alcohol was far better poison than hope. 

Perhaps she’d gone crazy after all, just like everyone who heard her story told her she would.   
How else could she explain her muse, her goddess, her fantasy standing in front of her, alive and real, looking at Clary with no less shock than Clary felt? 

A hallucination. 

An alcohol-induced twist of her mind. 

A trick of the shoddy lighting that made this woman only _look_ exactly like Clary's dream.

There were a thousand more explanations, good and rational, that could fit here. 

Clary could think of them, of course.   
She didn't.   
She was drunk enough, so who cared.

If this is just a trick of her mind, then she'll simply fall.

If this is just some stranger she could stand being shoved or hit or yelled at. 

Anything. Everything. 

Just to hold the dream in her hands, to breath in her scent, to feel the warmth of the body against hers. 

"...Clary?"

That couldn't be.   
That must've been another dream.   
How else this vision could possibly know her name?  
That settled that, so there was no more reason to be afraid.   
Just another dream, and in her dreams, Clary was free to do as she pleased.   
And right now all she wanted was to touch.   
To kiss the crimson lips opening with a surprised gasp.   
So warm, trembling, the rush of the other's breath mingling with hers...  
This was the best dream yet. 

"Wait, wait, what are you doing? Clary? Don't you... remember me?"

This was new.   
In her dreams, her muse never spoke, always silent no matter the circumstances.   
Clary often felt as if she knew how her voice would have sounded. She could almost imagine it, almost heard it on the edge of her hearing...  
But it never was like _that_.   
So real, with her muse struggling to shout over the music and the background noise of the club.   
That won't do, Clary thought. 

She wanted to savor this dream, to bask in every second of it. 

She wanted to hear that lovely voice more, clear and loud, ringing in her ears and saying her name again and again. 

So she grabbed the hand of her muse and urged her to the exit.   
The crowd of dancers swayed around them, pulling, threatening to tear them apart...  
Until her muse gripped Clary's hand tighter, linking their fingers in a slow, hesitant way.   
Something new again, a precious little gem to keep in Clary's memory for the other nights when she wouldn't be as lucky to see such beautiful dreams as this one.   
Her head pulsed with the receding drum of the music and her blood rushed faster and faster, excitement and terror, pushing it on and on.   
Clary was barely aware of the ride in the cab, too busy smiling and kissing away the attempts of her muse to talk.   
There would be another time, it had been so long, it's never been like that before.   
The taste of her tongue and the sting of her bite when, after another word smothered in the kiss, the muse groaned and dragged Clary away by her hair.   
The brown eyes of the muse were reflecting the light of the passing cars, highlighted one second and drowning in darkness the next...  
So breathtakingly beautiful, Clary didn't have the strength to fight the hold.   
She had already accepted the strangeness of this dream, and that she'd have to listen...  
But the muse didn't speak.   
She angled Clary's head just a little bit further back, exposing her neck, just before leaning in to leave a stinging mark there with her teeth.   
The next thing she knew, they were stumbling inside her apartment, hands tangled in each other's clothes and hair. 

She couldn't get enough. 

She needed everything and pleaded that the dream wouldn't end too soon. 

She didn't want to wake up. 

"You're not asleep, Clary..." 

Her muse talked again, dark eyes intent and somehow scared, staring into Clary's face cradled in her palms. 

"Of course I am... How else would you be here," - it was tiring to talk when all she wanted was to drown in this fantasy that felt so real. "You are my dream after all." 

There it was, the moment that just asked to be seized, her muse distracted, surprised, unprepared for Clary's words.   
So it was easy to shimmy closer, to fall together on the bed, climbing atop that gorgeous body clad in a tight, leather dress.   
It was amazing, the detail, the texture, even the tattoos’ stark black lines on exposed skin.   
Everything was clear and there to enjoy, so Clary did just that.   
No more talking.   
There were far better uses for that pretty voice after all. 

A pleasured gasp when Clary twisted a nipple between her fingers while biting another. 

An awed whisper of her name when Clary slowly trailed down kisses lower, nuzzling at the warm skin, tracing the tattoos with her tongue. 

A desperate moan when Clary's lips closed around the clitoris, sucking gently. 

A wanton groan when Clary drove her fingers in just right into a clenching heat, tongue flickering to tease and drive her goddess to a withering high of an orgasm. 

Clary listened to them all, eyes never closing for more than strictly necessary.   
Too afraid to be alone in her bed when she opened them again.   
Aching and throbbing with unfulfilled desire.   
She still ached that night, but this dream is different in yet another way.   
This time, the ache in her belly, the fire in her blood, they are answered and quenched by the touch of the strong arms.   
Black long locks tickled her thighs just as those alluring lips drew mysterious patterns on her skin.   
Clary may have been afraid, terrified, shaking with the desire to never wake up...  
But this dream, this woman, these touches, they washed her fears away in one overwhelming fiery cascade of sensations. 

It's strange, she thought, laying sated and content, slowly falling into a relaxed slumber.   
How could she fall asleep inside the dream? 

But here, right now, there is her muse snuggled in her arms. 

There are slow, measured breaths falling onto her lips as her muse shifts even closer. 

Finally, _finally_, this time, in this dream, Clary could see the patterns in tattoos and every detail of the exquisite face of her goddess. 

She soaked it all up, praying fervently in the darkness to remember upon waking.   
To keep this night, even if there was only loneliness and despair in the morning. 

Clary woke up with a start, stilling in the bed, body pleasantly sore.   
It was all too real, and the memories crashed over her one by one. The taste and the sight, every sense screaming that what she felt was real.   
Yet...   
She was alone in the bed, of course, she was.   
She probably should check in with a doctor or something, if her dreams were having that much of an impact on her.   
Clary ignored the tears falling from her eyes, unbidden, ignored the feeling of an empty hole in her chest where the heart should be, and turned, wanting to get out of bed as quickly as she could.   
The sheets were too crumpled, too warm, deceiving her mind into a trap of fruitless hope again.

Sobs racked her body when Clary lifted her gaze.

She saw it. 

Saw _her_. 

Clary was absolutely sure that she's awake and sober, and yet…

There she was.   
Her muse, her goddess, her dream incarnate.   
Standing naked, unashamed and painfully gorgeous in the light of the morning sun, tangled waves of black hair flowing over her shoulders.   
She stood and looked at the walls of Clary's room, unmoving.  
Clary was ready to believe that she truly was insane, but she hardly cared.  
Not when her muse stood right beside her as if she had walked from the countless paintings of herself that covered every inch of the walls.   
And then she turned.   
Beautiful, so beautiful, Clary was struck on the spot by that beauty.   
Confusion and elation, fear and joy, love and hope, everything built in her heart, threatening to overflow it, to stop it in its tracks, all of it too much and too little for her. 

"Clary? What... Why are you crying? Does it hurt somewhere? What happened?!"

Her goddess ran to her, worry written clear on that lovely face, arms careful as they check over Clary's body, trying to find the reason for her distress.   
It only served to make her cry harder, hyperventilating, clutching onto her muse in a death grip. 

"You're real, you're real, you're real..." - she mumbled, again and again, through the tears.

"Of course I'm real..." 

Gentle whispers, gentle touches, gentle eyes.  
Clary drowned in it, so afraid to believe, so desperate to dare. 

"And I'm never leaving you again."

There is conviction, fierce and unshakable in the words of her muse.   
It settles something in Clary's chest, like a lost piece of her suddenly slid into place. As if all this time she lived as half of herself and was now made whole.   
And even as the tears kept falling, she smiled, happy and stunned with that happiness.   
Clary snuggled into the soothing embrace of her muse deeper. 

This might be just another dream.

A mere fantasy. 

She didn't care anymore.


End file.
